Just curious, were you/ are you a dancer PA-19? I was a dancer and was thrilled to do anything to help the company that I was dancing with. I had a blast at many a function that I was asked to attend, and pleased to spend time with any patron that I was asked to meet, or wanted to meet me. I have life long friends from some of those functions, so I would have not minded donating my time (for auction) for the company who was so good to me. I never felt that if I did not attend it would have had any affect on my job security. I was with a very large well endowed company in the USA for 17 years. Great salary and a pension for re-training. Still they needed us to help keep it that way.

I don't know of any one of the company members who felt it beneath them or like a lap dancer.

Yes I was, although in the slightly harder edged world of contemporary dance. If you asked any of the contemporary dancers I know to do this the last thing anybody would remember about you was your body being found in the river.

As ballet has taken a knocking from Michelle, let's lob a few hand grenades at a modern dance company. Here is the page with the levels and benefits for the donors' programme of the Mark Morris Dance Group:

Through a variety of fund-raising activities, including donor receptions etc, Mark Morris, who leads from the front at such events, has provided his dancers with admirable class and rehearsal conditions, despite the paucity of the US state funding system:

Well, gasp, one of the benefits of donating a certain amount of money to the Rambert Dance Company is "An invitation to an exclusive Supporters’ event at Sadler’s Wells Theatre to meet some of Rambert’s dancers".

The Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre also specifically mentioned opportunities to meet dancers as a perk of donation.

Semi tangentally - in looking at a number of websites for UK based contemporary companies I'm shocked at the lack of any or any obvious information on how to donate to the companies. I don't think SDT mentioned it anywhere on their website. These are the companies that could probably most benefit from donations - private and corporate - but they are probably turning off potential donors by a lack of info. Is this a cultural thing or is is much harder to get people to donate here because of different tax laws?

I was a dancer and was thrilled to do anything to help the company that I was dancing with.

I think that you may be in the minority of artists who feel this way Lucy. I enjoyed this facet of my work as a dancer/skater as well. I think back to the 1982 Spoleto Festival in South Carolina and the amazing events we were asked to attend to promote the Festival to "money people."

Many company members have no idea of what it takes to keep an organization up and running. And just how perilous fund raising to keep a non-profit company alive is. In many instances they probably just don't care. In my experience, now having worked on both sides (dancer/marketing manager) dancing was the easier (less stressful) job, and at the time I never would have thought that!!

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This topic is starting to waver into dangerous territory, posters. I am getting to the point of wanting to close it...

Amen to that LMC. Now it's starting to pit ballet against modern/contemporary dancers, etc. And modern/contemporary company's against each other. What a lovely way to support each others passion.

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